for example if i can make you better at a sport whether it be baseball football golf or anything
quicker you're going to enjoy that sport more play it more often right that's my goal is to
get more people that are coming into the game playing better and enjoyed it so i can see both
sides of it because golf is very expensive and i can understand people's frustration i want to get
fit here's another thing i have to spend money on but i would say the same thing to anybody do you
work for free like do you own a store do you work for a corporation do you expect your knowledge
and expertise to be given for free i would say you don't and you wouldn't be happy if that was
the case so there's value in it i should say if so hey y'all welcome back to par for the course
some really strong reactions on the paid for fittings or free fittings adam representing my
golf spy in matt and ryan from txg up in canada each one of them giving strong arguments for or
against the other model and why it works for them i have a completely different take on each one of
theirs so i will be playing some clips reacting to some videos that each one of them
placed on their their youtubes recently and just give my thoughts and reactions and my
overall perspective on why they're both wrong stick with me i think industry has done a pretty
poor job of growing the game uh i think if it were we were to start it all over again i think
it could be done differently you know if the industry really was interested in growing
the game they would do fittings for free and give money back guarantees i've been on both sides so
yes i own my golf spy but prior to that i owned a fitting business and that's what we did for close
to a decade and i've also worked with retailers and gone in and done something exactly like that
trial and error charge for fittings or give for free and see what happens and uh it's interesting
to see what happens um so yeah that's that's why i think it i think it brings more golfers in
gives more golfers opportunities to improve faster and the quickest way to make a golfer for
life is to have them hit the sweet spot faster get that par quicker and get that birdie on the
scorecard as fast as they can and i feel like you can do that that was that was a little bit
my take as well was uh i was kind of i guess i was waiting for the punch line um on that one and
it you know it didn't seem to didn't seem to come as an industry solution um it seemed there was
a my ghost by solution and that they're gonna relaunch the you know the fitting tool um to fit
14 clubs and it'll be free not nine dollars and you know that's a it's a good you know solution
for for my goals by to offer a fitting tool but i'm like yeah i didn't hear something on there i
mean you know been doing this for for 20 years um oem working you know for for independence for you
know 12 years i i ca and i know the business model does not it does not work it does not stack up um
if you do it for free unless you're a high volume big box must be a lot of volume it's volume it's
a volume thing and that's like we were saying at the uh the start i mean you know do you and
i do we want to be that volume shop that uh that kind of it needs to be in order to make
that jive i mean we've done buy one get ones the bogo stuff in the past we know we know what
the conversion rates are you know adam's run his business he found a certain result that doesn't
mean it applies to the whole industry it did that did not work for us you know we may be converted
at 30 40 percent uh given the same experience right same facility same shaft same fitters and
then the paid version was a conversion of about 70 so on either side of this equation i can actually
put this in the terms that make sense for me and my daily nine to five so i work in the dental
industry and we have a very similar argument going on where there are your more traditional dental
offices that are fee for service and charge your your boutique type fees which would be your txg
in this equation and we also have another model on the other side which is probably like
medicaid public health some of your lower lower reimbursement plans and that that would represent
what adam's talking about and honestly both of these models exist for a reason and i think there
are reasons that the txg model thrives as well as reasons why the my golf spy golf for all bring you
know come one come all type of model comes into the equation i understand the reasons for both
of them so i don't think either one of them is wrong they're arguing for what their greater
interests are the txg is definitely arguing for you know the boutique model where you know golf
really has been for the longest period of time while it seems like the my golf spy is to
bring golf to the masses to bring in your unwashed people who typically haven't participated
in golf and that's through more access to the game okay this isn't about thg it's not about my golf
spy this is about golfers and the consumer and growing the game okay you can keep charging you
know you that's your business model okay that is txg related what i'm saying is i was brought into
a retailer to bring more people into the door at one point and they said how can we get more people
to come in here and spend more money and help more golfers so we did the fitting versus free fitting
the free fitting brought more people in and if you're a competent fitter it actually sold more
equipment okay led to happier golfers that shot lower scores that came back more often actually
by getting the free fitting they bought more stuff from that store they came back for more fittings
for more clubs okay so in the end you're actually paying off that equipment that you just mentioned
that's 75 way faster by offering free fittings now to your point where you have a waiting list
once again that's a txg problem that's not a golfer problem right so open up more stores fit
more people and also i look at it as the pyramid right what you're doing is serving the top of the
pyramid you're serving the people that are willing to pay for fitting because it's also a weeding
out system you're saying i feel like if you pay us 50 you're going to be more likely to pay for
our person's time and you're probably more likely to buy equipment the problem is that only serves
the top of the pyramid and there's 25 million golfers okay in the rest of that pyramid so what
adam speaks to here is really a consumer focused position he thinks about everything in terms of
the consumer he does not even consider how it equates to his business model or maybe he
even does and says if we offer up free items i will have somebody that comes back more often
spends more money with me on an ongoing basis i've seen where that is also true in my business
life so i don't think he has an argument you know that is directly towards the txg it's
really just a consumer focused argument in this next clip that i'm gonna show from txg it is a
very entrepreneur business focused argument so i understand that as well i'm not saying that txg
doesn't care about their customers they obviously do they provide a personalized service but where
their focus lies and how they achieve their end goal comes from two totally different positions
depth of knowledge to put together components uh analyze you know the golf swing and you know
such a fast-moving you know discipline also the amount of time fitting is anywhere from an hour
to three hours you're spending with someone so if it takes you three hours to pick out a pair
of shoes i don't think that's exactly the normal um transaction that occurs so i can see both
sides of it because golf is very expensive and i can understand people's frustration i
want to get fit here's another thing i have to spend money on but i would say the same thing
to anybody do you work for free like do you own a store do you work for a corporation do you expect
your knowledge and expertise to be given for free i would say you don't and you wouldn't be happy if
that was the case so there's value in it i should say if you find value in the fitting process
you should be willing to pay for it if you don't then that's probably why you think it should
be free yeah that's what i think yeah exactly as it relates to matt's last point i'm gonna
pick on that just a little bit in terms of his his reference to if you find value in fittings
and you pay for it i don't think it has to do with the value proposition most golfers do not think
about fitting in terms of an essential part of golf however as someone who recently went
through their first professional fitting i wouldn't do it differently again i would
not select clubs without the involvement of professional fitter but that is not something
that is being marketed to golfers you know it's it's your direct to consumer model so a lot of
golfers you know do not see the value and it will never ever go see a professional fitter because
that's just not something that the golf industry communicates is super important um the more you
play the more you understand that you may not be getting the best out of your game um that's how
i got there you know i had been playing the same irons for years and i just felt like with my swing
speed and talent that i wasn't getting the most out of my clubs which led me to go get fit and
see what that investment brought me so there are a lot of golfers out there that either just play
it on the weekend pick up the clubs once a month however i'm a multi you know brown per week or
at least once a week player you just don't have the bulk of golfers that are getting that much
golf in every week so that's why they don't value a fitting in the same way that somebody who's
a member at a club or just spends a lot more money on golf and you know has has taken a high
interest in the game and improving consistently from the big box experience which i have worked
for that's where i started in the golf industry if you want to exclude picking range balls and
cleaning carts the goal is to have people find something that's going to work well for them
because there is an inconsistency in a lot of players golf games and there's an expected level
of service once you go to get a fitting and you are looking to pay for it for us for example again
we charge and you know if you want to talk about covid or not but we have a massive waiting list
and a massive demand for our services because overall if you look at the satisfaction of golfers
who have gone through fittings and in a lot of cases free fittings from say larger retailers or
you know oem demo days where there might be a lack of training for certain individuals that in some
cases are seasonal employees all of those things it's hard to attract the the knowledgeable people
because they're either somewhere else or they're not in the golf industry they were in it and then
they left so what ryan references here is the golf industry has a talent problem and retention so he
doesn't believe there's enough competent fitters out there to do what txg does and that is truly a
golf industry problem that there's not a business model that sustains the best finest enough schools
programs around the schools that create golf fitters to put people in the right equipment then
you'd have a more varied mix right now there's really no in between there's either the free model
or the paid more expensive fitting model which again adam pointed out that that's the top of the
pyramid so the golf industry is itself is in this little mesh point where things are um are changing
years and years of experience and it's very very difficult to recreate that and that's why i stand
on the side of the fact that that professional knowledge is worth yeah no i i mean obviously you
know we agree and um you know adam's take to the the uh the the sort of everything has a cost sort
of thing was he ran this business you know and he had a business a club fitting business and um
you know his experience in his own business was actually they done more business when
they gave the fittings away for free okay um and and of course you know when when you
when you open it up for free you know you may convert five out of ten fits into sales whereas
in here we maybe convert three out of fours into into sales that's fine we have a higher conversion
rate the likelihood is because people are as investing their cash to come and do it you know
i have the intention to not just kind of come and kick tires and stuff exactly so in conclusion
after watching that last clip from ian here's my ultimate perspective and why i think they're
both incorrect i think both models have to exist for the golf industry to thrive you have a free
model for your beginner golfers who haven't yet found a reason to go get fitted they just
want to get into the game now i know that you know there's probably a lack of competent
fitters when you go into a pga superstore no shade um a dick sporting good these
aren't your your most competent fitters and that may mean you know that you don't get the best
information or you get generic information um or sometimes when you go to dicks you can't even
find an associate or know what their hours are um again as someone who's been playing golf for nine
years i have found a reason to go get fit and why it fits my game and then why the investment made
sense for me so i think both models have to exist so they're to me just watching through some of
the clips and watching both interviews um you know there does seem to be a bit of protection
or just protection of their model on the txg side um when in actuality having free fittings
does not threaten the lifeblood of what they do because you're always going to have a niche
of golfers who are willing to pay high dollar to be the best that they can at the game i
mean it is a game that you do spend money on so you're always going to have that built-in
customer base that's willing to come to you so if there's a thousand golf spot my golf spots that
pop up offering free fittings it's not going to change the segment of golfer that typically caters
to txg and what they do so from from arguing about their perspectives i would say they're both
wrong and that they need each other to thrive so y'all thank y'all for joining appreciate y'all
viewing the videos to the end if you can please go like share and subscribe to the channel greatly
appreciated go check out their videos i'll link them down in the description a lot of insightful
thoughts from both a little bit longer format i just took some highlights from each of the videos
so hope to see you here soon keep supporting the channel again like share and subscribe so i can
keep bringing you awesome uh news about golf training aids and other things that are going
around on the golf world talk to y'all soon bye
